The 39 clues: The Mystery of the Hoteps
by the39clueslover
Summary: As the Vespers continue to threaten their safety, the Cahill finds aid in another ancient family.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Julian Hotep stared out the window of the car. Sighing, he thought about why he was actually in the car. His ancestors had always hunted for immortality. His ancestors were the Egyptians. All they ever wanted was to live forever. For some though, their belief in the afterlife, the Egyptian equivalent of heaven, was not good enough for some of them. So, it was a race against time, between the followers of Thoth, Hathor, Sekhmet, Horus and Isis to make it first. The challenge was set by Ramses the great, the followers coming from his own children. He figured it out. But he didn't have time to make it. So, he spread the clues around, hiding them in the world. And great wars and ba-

"Julian, look at this." Julian's train of thought was broken by his younger sister, Olivia Hotep. Julian peered over the laptop screen which his sister was holding in his lap.

"Yeah, great." He mumbled without enthusiasm. Olivia rolled her eyes.

"Look. These records state the Ramses was ordering an unusually large amount of Myrrh trees." Olivia pointed at the glowing screen.

"Decoration?" Julian was willing to shrug anything off right now.

"You seem to forget how important it is to find the clues first." Olivia rolled her eyes.

"Guys, I've got nothing." Julian had been so absorbed he'd forgotten about their cousin, Iley Johnson.

"But, Myrrh could be a possibility." She sighed, staring at Olivia's screen.

"But, before we can do anything else, we need to meet with Josh, Ailis and Hannah." Ben, their other cousin who was also looking after them. His brother, Josh, had taken two other girls in another car, Ailis Rodgers and Hannah Rogger- Amies, more of Julian's cousins. Okay, Julian wasn't really a family person. He didn't like the big family get-togethers, surrounded by people, while his sister loved meeting her family like this. But what he hated even more was family get-togethers like this- grasping at the tiniest bits of information that can get you killed, and quickly rush to a destination to swap information and run off again. He felt sorry for his sister at the most. He was fourteen- She was eleven. The rest of the girls were twelve, leaving the siblings the youngest and oldest. He had received more years of teaching and learning to prepare for this race. How ann-  
BRING! BRING! Julian's train of thought was broken by the phone this time.

"I'll get it." Iley sighed, reaching for the bag with the phone in it.

"Hello?" As the person on the other end of the phone blabbered on about something, Iley's face slowly lit up.

"Guys?"

"Yeah." Julian and his sister said at the same time, with no enthusiasm again.

"They've won." Iley's grin was as large as the car they were in themselves.

"It's safe. There's balance within the Cahills." Olivia breathed. She thought about the long twisted history between the Cahills and the Hoteps. Olivia Cahill, the mother of all the Cahill ancestors, had been a Hotep at first. It showed in her need for peace, being a descendant of the followers of Hathor. When her family found out what had happened, they vowed to protect Olivia Cahill's family for as long as they could. To protect them from the ones that had murdered Gideon Cahill.

"But you know what that means." Olivia whispered, as if afraid to bring the subject up.

"Vespers." Julian said with much disgust. The family that was on the trail for two prizes. The Cahills serum, the drink that made you superior in every human endeavor, and the Hoteps own prize, the ability to live forever. The Vespers were the exact reason the two families had stayed intertwined for all this time. Hidden, of course, the Hoteps had secretly protected the Cahills behind a black sheet. They were doing their best to hold the enemy back. But the Vespers were ruthless. They had killed of a lot of the family. They weren't afraid of the consequences. For them, it was a dog eat dog world. NOTHING would stand in their way.

"What does that mean now?" Iley asked quietly.

"Simple. We abandon these silly duties for even sillier ones." Julian mimicked in an attempt to sound girlish. Iley and Olivia both shot him looks.

"What, it's true though." Julian spat at the car floor.

"I just hope we don't end up with those Kabra brats. Their mother was a Vesper." Olivia grumbled after rolling her eyes.

"Or that Jonah Wizard. His ego's as big as his fame." Iley added.

"Or those bulking Holts. We won't be able to keep up." Julian grumbled.

"And no Ekats. They will think they're so smart, they don't need protecting." Ben added after being silent for ages while driving.

"That only leaves the underdogs." Julian whispered.

"The Madrigals." Olivia put on the end.

"But we don't get to chose." Iley looked at the two siblings.

"One or two of every branch is put on a team." Julian said in a very matter-of-factly way.

"What do the rest do?" Olivia tilted her head. Iley shrugged. "Continue to search, I guess."

Meanwhile, while the other three in the other car were worried about which family they had to protect, Ailis Rogers begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlightingwas doing her five second drawings which she deemed "Awesome."  
Grinning, she scribbled Olivia with mad hair like always. Then a massive hammer. He he. She's have to show Olivia. Getting bored, she started drawing Kinpento. Wolves were tricky, she didn't want to muck Kinpento up...  
Oops, serious matters to do with clues going on.

"What are you doing?" Her cousin, Hannah Rogger- Amies muttered, peering over at Ailis' sheet.

"Simple. Drawing Olivia being squashed by a giant Hammer of course!" Ailis grinned. As much as Hannah found the idea appealing, Hannah couldn't help rolling her eyes. Olivia and Ailis seemed to enjoy annoying each other in their own strange way. Olivia would decide to put something about Ailis kissing a boy in her story (most offensive) or threaten to tell Kinpento that Ailis hated him (Kinpento the awesome wolf), then Ailis would decide she was going to whack Olivia with a hammer one day soon. About then they would both start making some weird screaming noises, then go draw some mad pictures, forgetting the war. Wow, her friends were crazy.

"Shouldn't you two be researching?" Josh grumbled from the front seat.

"Let Olivia and Iley do that." Hannah sighed.

"Yup, they can. Although, I'm not so sure about trusting OLIVIA with that, what if her brain explodes again and she goes into mad mode! Well, at least Julian isn't doing it... I have to agree with Olivia that his brain somehow seems to have been replaced with a piece of broccoli." Ailis grinned. Josh and Hannah groaned with Ailis' new statements, and not really in the mood after running from some murderous civilians had been chasing them for taking a rock from their museum.

'ARE WE THERE YET!" Ailis was the only one in the mood to joke around. She'd waited in the car (for safety reasons).

"YES! I shall slag you off to my very er, _conspicuous_ brother." Ben was conspicuous, just looked for the clumsiest and stupidest person in the area and you've found Ben. But his heart of gold made up for it. After Josh had pulled up and parked, Ailis burst out of the car with her "lovely" drawing and raced towards the other license plate she noticed. She thrust open the car door. She nearly fell on Julian, but she maintained her dignity by stooping wildly, doing her best not to land in his lap.

"YES! Safe!" Ailis gratified her moment of glory.

"Olivia, do you like my drawings!" She thrust the sheet into her cousins face, grinning cheekily.

"Arghhhhh!" Olivia was taken by surprise by Ailis, being so absorbed in the Laptop. Iley sighed and Julian made a futile grasp for the paper. Fail. The group stumbled out of the car, Julian collapsing on his sister, who nearly buckled under the weight. Hannah pushed on the siblings cheekily, just _kindly _making it harder for Olivia. Only if the two hadn't collapsed. Oops.  
Josh groaned. "Are we going or not?" The girls (and Julian) sprang up, grinning sheepishly Hannah could kind of feel sorry for Josh - 20, trying to go on a serious mission, and stuck with possibly the craziest people on earth. So maybe they shouldn't be playing up so much... it was weird how suddenly things could not seem so serious. Trying to get everyone's focus back, Iley prodded: "British museum now, so we're going to have to look really hard for any possible clues. It is after all one of the places with the most Egyptian artifacts in the world. Just try not to go crazy, or you'll get us kicked out of the museum."

"As if we'd ever do that!" Ailis gasped, in mocked shock

"We won't go crazy, well, well _try _not to.." Olivia trailed off.  
Hannah gave the death look - that was enough. Ailis and Olivia started walking extremely cautiously, trying the "oh so innocent" expressions (worth a try).  
Quite close, Iley could make out a tall grey building. Rather fancy looking for a museum, the outside had huge grey pillars, and a display on Greek mythology (okay, I'll have to check what it really is. Something similar to that..) but then, Iley reminded herself, it was a very famous museum. The group started to make their way up the stairs, and into the large foyer.

Iley and Ailis were doing their best to scour all the artifacts. The group had been divided into sub-groups. Olivia and Julian, Iley and Ailis and Hannah and Josh and Ben. Putting the two siblings together was not a good idea. They had covered three different parts of the museum. It didn't necessarially have to be found in the Egyptian part, as Ramses children spread all over the world, most often mistaken to be dead. But none the less, Egypt was a good place to start. With Hieroglyphic translation book in hand, Iley scoured all the plates and inscriptions on the artifacts. Nothing. Meanwhile, Ailis hadn't moved from one artifact. She just kept staring at this one specific one.

"Earth to Ailis, we have no time to take in the beauty." Iley said mockingly.

"Something's not right..." She whispered.

"See, here, the carvings have been carved over older ones." She pointed at a certain line.

Olivia and Julian's target was Punt, it seemed that the two civilizations had had quite a close link from Iley's research (Thank you Iley). The siblings were trying their best not to break out running in the middle of the museum, or something crazy like that

"They say that they had lots of imports from Punt" Julian muttered as they walked "Maybe some ingredients...". Using the map, they found that the Punt section was small, but had quite a few artifacts. Julian scanned the glass cases, looking for something useful "Anything with Egyptian hieroglyphics?" he sighed. "Like these letters?" Olivia called casually from the other side of the room. "What?" Julian called, rushing over. Olivia shrugged, well there's these weird letterimabobs with Egyptiany-looking writing. Hey, is that a lion hieroglyphic? Cool, it's so tiny..." Julian was desperately flicking through his hieroglyphic book "If only we could translate this..."

"Who's the letter sent by?" Julian muttered

"Well, it says on the sign something, erm...Am-oon-her-ku-hep-e-shalf, ooh, amuerkuheppishaf!"  
Julian groaned "Amun her khepseshef"

"Oh." Olivia sighed. "He's no good then, we need Ramses II"

"Wait" Iley said, grinning "he was Ramses' first son..."

Did Hannah ever mention that going round a museum with dumb 20 year olds was one of the most annoying and difficult things she'd ever done? Well there you go. Ben and Josh hadn't really come to terms with this clue hunt. They weren't the brightest around either. But Hannah just sighed and got on with it. The Ancient Egyptians were sneaky. They transported themselves to different countries in the cargo ships when they traded goods and they disgusied themselves as Romans to save their skin when Celopatra's reign came to an end. So, Hannah was searching in the roman area. There were so many artefacts, and Hannah was checking every single on of them carefully. A Roman script describing the time the Romans took over Egypt by an Egyptian who had originally been kidnapped by the romans from her point of veiw. Down the bottom was a translation. Hannah knew a little bit a latin. But Ben was an expert. Ben skimmed the writing, frowning.

"What is it?" Hannah snapped.

"This person COULD NOT spell. Unless..." Ben grabbed his note pad and started scribbling something down...

Ailis flicked through her hieroglyphics book, even though it wasn't necessary.

"Here, and here." The pointed at the top of a column and at it's middle.

"They didn't do a very good job of covering it up." She sighed. She peered closely at the faded and hidden writing.

"Iley." Her cousin raised his head. "This symbol, right here, means Myrrh. See? And there, it says 'By the power of Ra, the key.' Iley. Myrrh, it's the clue!" Ailis smiled widely. Myrrh- Their 30th clue, and 13 left to find. Closing her book, Ailis nodded at Iley as she scribbled down the hieroglyphics and what they meant next to it. They grabbed their bags and made for the exit.

Olivia and Julian stared intently at the letters. Julian was working fast at translating the letters while Olivia scribbled down what they said (and her 5 second cartoons of them). Julian sighed as he took the pad to read what they'd translated.

"Amun her khepseshef,  
To the trading matters: the This quest is blocking your brain. You need to think of such consequences of this corrobree. You're father is old. He has passed the average human life span. You are his first son. Succession is soon to be granted to one of you. And you want more supplies? It is indeed an interesting list you have here. I understand all but one of these supplies. Leopard Blood. Where and how do you expect us to find that? We will not hunt down such a beautiful animal. You Egyptians may be ruthless, but here in Punt, we shall not!" Iley frowned. Leopard blood? No, it couldn't be. She had noticed in her branches Lab a whole vial of the stuff preserved, but she thought that it was just for show or for experimenting. But was the real reason was because it was a clue?

"Leopard blood is the key. My sisters discovered the first of the list. Myrrh. My father is old. He is dying. Isn't this all a son could want to help his frail father?" That was all Amun her Khepseshef put for a reply. And down the bottom, something was scribbled out. And when they looked closely, two papers were actually sown together. Olivia and Julian exchanged glances.

"We're going to need this…" And Julian pulled a glove over his hand.

Ben finished scribbling down on the paper.

"Curdled like blood, the injured screamed, a final word, a final breathe, the final clue, that's all I need.  
From the fangs of the asp of the distraught queen, I will find the clue, and life will be a dream." Ben read aloud.

"Snake venom." Josh exclaimed.

"No, snake bone. Or teeth. Look here. it say's bone after all the mistakes. _Bones. All that is left. The last word they screamed, The last of what they shall breathe._ Most thought she was just reciting poetry." Ben sighed. Josh tilted his head, and Hannah was surprised that the boys had figured it out.

"Snake bone? Well, that's un-expected. And that girl was bad at poetry." She grinned as she ran for the exit.

Ailis and Iley saw Hannah, Ben and Josh emerge from the entrance.

"Okay, Olivia and Julian have taken too long in there. Something's wrong." Ailis pointed out. The siblings were often the quickest to figure something out.

"ARGHHHHHHHHHH!" Julian and Olivia burst out of the museum, their arms failing and Julian waving around something rolled up in his hand.

"RUN!" Angry security guards ran after the siblings, and their cousins weren't slow to pick up on the vibes. And run. Trying their hardest to stick together, they ran through the streets at top speed.  
And that children, is why you don't go hunting for clues.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"WHAT NOW!" Ben screamed as he ran. 

"Run first, ask questions later!" Olivia cried. The group raced down the street, disturbing quite a few people in the process. Ben had been so intent on running, that he didn't notice he'd split from the group. He found himself in the town square. 

"What the hell? Help!" He squeaked, looking desperately around. 

"Benjamin Hotep? Is that you?" A voice came from behind. 

"Oh great." Ben moaned under his breath. He spun around to be face to face with Nellie Gomez, his old school friend. He noticed two kids with her, a girl around Julian's age and A boy a few years younger. 

"It's been so long!" Nellie made wide arm expressions.

Olivia scrambled higher into the tree. The tree had always been her hiding place when she was younger, so why couldn't see use it now. She had the letter, so Julian, Josh, Hannah, Iley and Ailis had all run to the car on Josh's and Olivia's command, to keep them safe and for them to come round and collect them. But Ben seemed to have other ideas. He was having a chit-chat. Olivia scrambled closer. What on earth? CRACK! Uh oh.

"Uh, Nellie, now's not exactly the ti-" 

"!" Ben put his arms out awkwardly to catch Olivia in time. She didn't see the groups faces, and they didn't see hers. Olivia scrambled down and ran off with the letter in her glove. Ben saluted before quickly following. 

"Well it wasn't my fault! You can't just walk away!" Ben cried. 

"You could have told them it wasn't the time!" Julian screamed. 

"He did!" Olivia sighed, shaking her head at the two boys. 

"Who was this chit-chatter?" Josh sighed. 

"Nellie Gomez." Ben and josh exchanged glances in the front seat. 

"Well, she's probably better at looking after the kids then us." Ben sighed. 

"You two are okay!" Olivia cried. 

"Yeah, because we give you ice cream and let you run loose." Ben groaned. The girls shook their heads in the back. 

"The point is we've got the letters." Iley pointed out. 

"Knife please!" Everyone stared at Julian, the boys excited, Hannah and Ailis amused and Olivia and Iley horrified. 

"Use my Swiss army Knife." Josh held out the item to Julian. 

"I'm going to regret this… Olivia, get the old-looking string and get ready to sow." Julian carefully lined up his knife. It would have been totally quiet of it wasn't for the splashing of Olivia trying to make some string look old. 

"Okay, concentrate…" Julian inhaled. Carefully, he cut the string (Which was pretty strong for string) and gave the top sheet to Iley who had also had gloves on and stared at the second page. 

"Aw, it's just gibberish." Ailis complained. 

"Wait. Look here. It means two. And the letters are:

F-**L**-D-**E**-A-**O**-R-**P**-Q-**A**-V-**R**-U-**D** W-**B**-P-**L**-J-**O**-T**-****O**-H-**D** K**-****I**-G-**S** P-**T**-L-**H**-O-**E** F-**C**-M-**L**-I-**U**-G-**E**. Hey, Ailis is right, It's gibberish." Iley groaned. 

"No, look here. Every second letter is bold and got a line underneath it. Olivia, do something useful and figure it out." Julian grumbled. He thrust the paper in Olivia's face. Olivia shook her head. 

"You can do it." She hissed. Julian sighed. Placing the paper in her lap, he retrieved his pad and wrote down the bold and under-lined letters. 

"LEOPARDBLOODISTHECLUE." Olivia read. 

"Leopard Blood _is _the clue." Iley exhaled. 

"Isn't that obvious in the letters?" Ailis tilted her head. 

"Others would think it's a cover. And the first letter is a fake message, the real one is the hidden one, as you can see. They wouldn't let something like that be clear to the plain eye." Olivia said in a very matter-of-factly way. Josh rolled his eyes in the front seat. 

"Just sow the pages back together and we'll return it to the museum."

Sneaking back into the British Museum after you stole from it was not an easy to do. But the Only way was the Hotep way. Julian and Hannah poked their heads around the corner. The tall grey building was menacing in the dark of the night. Hannah had lost a bet. That was the last time she would fool around about something like this. She was cheeky by nature, and a trouble maker of all rights. Julian had made it across the clearing without being seen before she had, and she had to quickly sprint to catch up with him. When she got to the door, Julian was standing there, stunned. 

"Ekat territory." He growled. The key pad was high tech, and was obviously disguised during the day. Hannah stepped towards the pad. 

"What are you doing!" Julian hissed. Hannah quickly typed into the pad, flogging the key pad like it was a simple math puzzle. 

"What the?"Julian was in awe. 

"We may explore, and with exploration comes knowledge." Hannah stated before running into the museum.

The others sat in the car. 

"I mean, Julian? He'll blow it." Olivia continued to rant about why her brother shouldn't be going into the museum with Hannah. 

"SHHHHHHH!" Ben hushed. "Another cars coming" Olivia's eyes automatically fell on the museum entrance. 

"Get out." Ben poked at Josh. Silently, the older sibling crept out of the car. Ben drove off before being seen. And Josh took on the impression that he was a lonely walker in the night, a settled on the bench, to make sure no one would try any funny stuff.

"Hurry up!" Hannah hissed. 

"Yeah yeah, give me time!" Julian quietly opened the cage and placed the delicate parchment in the case. 

"There." He sighed, taking his gloves off after locking the case. As they headed for the entrance, Julian stopped dead in his tracks.

"Cover." He inhaled, staring at Josh on the bench. He noticed another car, sinister.

"Back exit. Out the window." Julian crept towards the end of the long hall, putting his cloves back on. He hoisted the glass and metal up, offering passage to Hannah. After she'd jumped out, Julian followed quickly and let the window fall. They shot across the pavement; hoping no-one would notice them. Josh calmly got out of the bench and walked calmly around the corner, where he sped into an all out sprint. Ben, who was waiting on the other side, fired up the car, and quickly sped off after the others flopped in.  
"Parchment back?" Iley said anxiously. Julian and Hannah nodded breathlessly.

"Who do you think was in the other car?" Olivia asked quietly.

"I bet you it was those scamming Vespers. When will they quit?" Julian scowled.

"Until they are extinguished." Olivia muttered.

"They won't stop even after they find the clues. They want revenge." The car was silent after Olivia's statement.

"Guy's, you know that we're going to have to split up very soon you know." Julian whispered. It was true. It was the time they were all looking forward to, but also the time they were dreading. They would be split up- Spread around the world. Their "party" was chosen because they have proved their worth. A few others would be selected as well, but it was still mainly their group. They didn't know who they were going to be placed with and who they were going to be defending.

"Well guys, we better head to the apartment. Early night. Early-ish."

Hannah sat in the kitchen glumly eating her cereal. Olivia was outside with the dog that belonged to the apartment above them, and the rest were in bed. The race had turned Hannah from a cheeky girl to a serious girl. It was a scary change. Everyone knew Hannah was the one who always cracked the jokes, but she was in a darker time now. The fate of the world. That was what was at stake. Yeah, sure, the Cahills had their serum and everything. But the Hoteps weren't just about their immortality, it was about the Cahills. They were meant to protect them. Hannah was having the same thoughts as Julian (So I won't go through it again). She was distracted by Julian walking into the room. She grumbled under her breath, but didn't comment.

"Morning. You know tonight we know who we're protecting and where to go." Julian said painfully. He hoped he wouldn't be separated from his sister, she was the only part of family with him.

"You and Olivia won't be separated. You can only be separated from you siblings if your over 18." Hannah grumbled.

"Josh and Ben will be in different teams." Julian whispered. Olivia opened the door, bringing her muddy footprints into the house. She was head to foot caked in mud.

"Go and get a bath and get changed!" Julian shouted. Ailis and Iley gave Olivia a weird look as they came out of their bedrooms.

"What was that?" Iley was halfway between a laugh and a sigh.

"Olivia can never resist getting dirty." Julian sighed.

"WELL SO-ORRY!" Olivia shouted from the bath-room. Ailis and Iley placed themselves down at the table. Nobody spoke. The silence was awkward, and they could all tell they were all thinking the same thing. They were thinking about when they were going to split up. It was to be a dreaded phone call. They stayed silent until Olivia burst into the room.

"Splitting up's going to be just like going to High school, in a way. I mean, there's no guarantee that we'll be in the same team. And the scariness of it." Olivia sighed jumping down into her seat.

"What do we do for the rest of the day?" Julian looked at the rest of the group.

"DRAW KINPENTO!" Ailis grinned.

"NO!" The rest of the group said in urgent union.

"Fine…"

"We could go to the beach?" Olivia stuck her head forward.

"In England? Pl-ease." Josh swatted his hand.

"Who said anything about England?" Ben said, raising seven plane tickets up.

The plane seemed to take forever (Well, six hours is pretty long if you ask me) But they were up early (Around four-five in the morning) And they arrived at seven thirty. Ben had checked out in a fairly plain hotel and they were forced to get going by Olivia. Hannah and Iley sat on the sand with their books. Olivia and Ailis were splashing around in the water as Julian planned a surprise attack. Josh and Ben watched from afar, chuckling.

"What do you think it's going to be like for them, you know, splitting up after all this time?" Ben sighed.

"I don't know. They're going to have to get close to people they don't even know." Josh added. They watched Julian terrorize his sister and Ailis. They chuckled repeatedly.

"Ben? And Josh?" The boys both winced.

"Hiiiiii Nellie…" Josh held his breath. Ben also noticed the two kids behind her.

"Cellllll-abrate good times C'mon!" Ben rolled his eyes as he heard Olivia singing Celebration. He only had a few seconds to just skip out of her way as she shot past him.

"What's she up to now?" Josh tried to spot his cousin.

"They got Julian down on the ground." Ben looked towards the beach, seeing Ailis with her foot on Julian's back triumphantly.

"Kids…" Nellie muttered. "This is Amy, and this is Dan." The girl, around fourteen, shyly smiled, while the boys jumped forward to shake both the boys hands.

"So, how's it be-" CRASH! Hannah ran to the boys.

"Um Ben? You're going to have to pay some insurance." Hannah grinned nervously. Josh sprinted away as Amy and Dan giggled as Nellie had a dreamy look watching him. Josh came struggling back with something black in his arms.

"I _think _it's time to go." Josh heaved every time the squirming mass elbowed him. So, the group left the beach, thanks to Olivia's car troubles (don't ask. It's a long story.). Josh paid about $200 dollars before the group hurried off.

"What did I tell you about doing that!" Josh screamed in the car. The kids winced every time he shouted something else.

"Guys, just try not to be so destructive." Ben sighed, the kids understanding his little speech a little more.

"You know it's six." Julian muttered.

" Yeah Josh, you left three hours for us to 'think' about what we've done. Now you give us a looooooooooooooooooooong lecture." Olivia put in.

"Well it's your fault I'm giving you this lecture!" Josh screamed. Josh and Olivia started firing things back at eachother at the same time loudly.

"Shut up!" Ben shouted over the noise. There was silence as the phone rang. Ben sighed and answered it.

"Hello? Oh." He shut the phone off. "Guys? It's time to split up."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Iley paced nervously around the room. It was her first day at her school in Boston. Iley, Julian and Olivia had be assigned to Amy and Dan Cahill, Hannah and Ben the Kabras, Josh and Ailis, Jonah Wizard and The rest of the groups had been assigned to other people. But Iley still wanted a good reputation at school. In Australia, she hadn't done so well. Neither had Olivia. They'd been in the smart class, where the other classes said often cruel comments about the smarter kids. But, now, it was a new beginning. Julian and Olivia burst into the room messing up each other's hair in some sort of wrestling competition standing up.

"Stop it! Oh, Olivia! Look at you hair!" Olivia looked up at her haywire fringe and shrugged. Julian and Olivia's mother walked into the room. She was quite pretty, and was the Hathorika branch leader. The family was divided into five branch, that originally followed the five different gods. Olivia and Julian's were Hathorika, meant for peace (and ultimately failing) and Iley was part of the Thothela branch, meant for intelligence (and ultimately coming up on top).

"Kids. C'mon, you don't want to be late. Olivia, you've got to promise to try at least to stay neat." She looked at her daughter accusingly, who reluctantly nodded.

Iley breathed in as she entered the schools gates. _Adams Middle School. _That was their new school. Olivia burst past Iley, who quickly tried to catch up. The raced past a school yard full of girly girls and loads of boys, but neither of them cared. They were a little concerned leaving Julian to sort out Amy, but oh well. Neither of them were fourteen. After they'd found their class room and where to put their bags, they entered the school-yard.

"Great…" Olivia muttered as she observed the mingling girly girls. Iley whined as she watched the boys play basket-ball. Olivia rolled her eyes. She'd spent three years of her life with Iley, and Iley had taught her how to play well, but she was still annoyed by the game.

"I wish we could play…"Iley groaned.

"WISH GRANTED!" Olivia raced forward and caught the ball in mid-air. She quickly side stepped the group of grumpy faced boys and passed it to Iley.

"Hi, grumpy people…" Iley felt small against them. Olivia jumped on a table.

"ILEY!" Her cousin was quick to get rid of the ball she had once wanted to play with. Iley stepped to the side and observed as Olivia quickly maneuvered the boys to get one hoop after the other. Iley was quick to join in with Olivia, with them thrashing the boys. The game ended with the boys panting and Olivia and Iley sitting on the table.

"You two are good." The tallest one said. He had messy blond (Or caramel) hair, with blue eyes that reminded Olivia a lot of Hannah.

"How'd you learn all that?" The shortest by a tiny bit, with reddy brown hair with the blue green eyes, who reminded Olivia a lot of Ailis. She looked at Iley, who's dark brown hair was covering his brown eyes. Olivia pointed at Iley.

"From her." Olivia panted. "She was the basketball Champion in our old school"

"Well, I think I'd prefer to have you guys on the team, not against us." The one that spoke was the one that Olivia swore she knew. The blonde hair and the jade eyes. Iley was sure she knew whoever it was as well, but couldn't quite put her finger on who it was.

"I'm Olivia Hotep. Yes, my name is weird, no comments." Olivia jumped off the table and stuck her hand out to shake someone's. Iley got down from the table more gracefully and asked for a handshake more gracefully as well.

"I'm Iley Johnson. Nice to meet you." She smiled. The boys introduced themselves with energy, the largest being Jake Davies, the one with the red-brown hair Jake Anderson and the last being Dan Cahill. Olivia had to stop herself from leaping with joy. It seemed to be getting off to a good start with the whole being close to them thing. Now, it was up to Julian…

That was the last time Julian was buying _Being Smart for Dummies _book. A complete, utter waste of time! First off, you had to be smart anyway! So Julian was doomed. He had nothing else to use. He wasn't un-attractive, but he didn't show off like the rest of them. To tell you the truth he still acted like a seven year old. Julian looked at the ground until he bumped into someone.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" He quickly helped the his new school mate up. It was a boy at his age, with dark hair and eyes.

"Watch it idiot!" He growled. Julian flinched. It reminded him of Josh when he was angry. The bell saved Julian for once, and he was quick to hurry to his homeroom. And the thing he didn't really want to do was to be dragged up the front of the class and be introduced to everyone. But oh, what was the first thing he did? Exactly that.

"Kids, this is Julian. I would like you to welcome him, seeing as it's his first year in high school, and he's starting away from home." His teacher explained. Julian hated that. He felt like he was in Primary school again. He thought he heard the group surrounding the boy who he'd bumped into the hall earlier sniggering. Julian rolled his eyes.

"Hi." He quickly got to his seat. Sometimes he wished he was An ostrich, able to hide his head in the sand. He was fine around his family, and slightly temperamental, but around new people? He was extremely shy. His first lesson was Science, which, embarrassingly, he was looking forward too. He stood with the rest of the class, listening to his science teacher carefully. They were being put into pairs, most kids enthralled with being with either their friend or someone they could pick on (the stupid ones enthralled when they got paired with the Science Wiz kids).

"Amy and Julian." Julian looked up. He moved over to another table, placing his stuff down. A girl cautiously followed.

"Hi." She smiled. "I'm Amy, as you can tell." Julian quickly took note of her docile, quiet personality that was apparent from the moment she sat down.

"Julian Hotep. Nice to meet you." Julian and his sister had a trait of sticking their hand out instinctively to shake another's hand. Amy shook it weakly. Julian himself didn't have that great people skills. But he'd make it through.

Olivia continued to chase Dan, going round and round in a circle. Iley and the rest of them just kept following them with their heads.

"Never, ever, ever, make Olivia angry. It won't end well for you." Iley sighed, taking a bite out of her sandwich. SNAP!

"Run!" She scrambled off the table, ducking as Julian made a grab at her.

"You're not very quiet!" Iley growled. But Julian was off and already had Olivia's head under his arm. Dan stopped panting.

"Yay yo- Hey wait! You lot are from the beach!" Amy had turned up, Olivia and Julian both looking up from their awkward position.

"Amy! You know! The ones with the one Nellie was all dreamy over!" Dan pointed at the two.

"Busted…"

Hannah sat in the class room glumly, about a later. She'd been sent back to London, to look after the two British snobs, the Kabras. She was stuck in Natalie's class, and Ben was being a teacher aids in Ian's. Hannah had been acting all girly. And she HATED IT! Hannah was far from girly. She was like Olivia. She preferred rolling in the mud or playing sport! The bell rang, send a flash of girly joy through the class. Hannah burst out of the room, but sadly she was not greeted by fresh air. She was greeted by girlish bickering and sniggering. She was extremely different from the other girls. Natalie strutted toward her, making everyone look up her nose.

"Hannah, seems as we arranged that we're going shopping today." Natalie didn't even bother looking Hannah in the eye as she spoke. Hannah knew that Natalie had changed from when her mother was imprisoned, but she'd just changed right back. Hannah sighed.

"I guess so."

Another thing Hannah didn't exactly like was shopping for girlish stuff. But she had to play along with it. She looked around glumly as Natalie argued on the phone with her brother. Hannah didn't bother listening in. It was probably about rich snobby people things. Hannah never understood all that. Natalie grunted as she shut down her phone.

"He's soooooooooooooooo annoying! Restrictions, restrictions, restrictions! And now he want's to go to Boston to see _Amy_! He wants to apologize! How stupid!" Natalie growled.

"Actually, it's pretty brave to go and apologize for something. It shows whether you're a good person or not." Hannah gave a cocky smile as Natalie blinked at her. It was Hannah's talent to stand out. She always made sarcastic or funny comments, and followed her own path (if she's allowed to). Natalie blinked a little bit more.

"Okay. So you're game to go to Boston to apologize to someone?" Natalie was shocked. Hannah nodded.

"Fine." Natalie sighed. "I'll go if _you _go." She gave her cocky smile.

"Okay." Hannah gave her cocky smile again. Hannah knew this might work. Iley, Olivia and Julian were all protecting Amy and Dan, and if The Kabras went to Boston, Hannah could spend time with her friends. It was only up to Ailis now. She had to find a way to combine with the rest of them. Natalie and Hannah were quick out of the shops (much to Hannah's relief). With the Kabras being rich, it wasn't much trouble for them to book flights for Hannah and Ben as well. Hannah and Ben gave their secret high five before boarding the plane a few hours later. This was all going to plan…

What Ailis was doing was stupid. She knew that. But she could not stand Josh any longer. Before they had gone, she had cried for mercy:

"! Not JOSH! PLEASE! NOT JOSH! !" But it hadn't worked. So, she was running away. After about 1000 entries into the 'Meet Jonah Wizard' competition, they'd won. But Ailis didn't want to meet a pop star. She wanted to be with her friends. So she was running off to Boston. She sat and the window of the plane sadly. It was going to take some time to get to Iley and Olivia's current location, but Ailis would rather be going then be stuck with Ben.

Julian, Iley and Olivia bounced into the apartment. Julian had to study with Amy, and Iley and Olivia were tagging along because Julian and Olivia's mum was out at a branch meeting.

"Pretty cool." Julian nodded.

"Ow." Dan had just stumbled out of the room, rubbing his head.

"Wait wait wait… why are you two here?" He asked, pointing at Olivia and Iley.

"Mum's busy." Olivia put bluntly. Iley and Julian nodded.

"I'm just here for the Cake." Iley sighed. In Iley language, that meant 'I'm only here for stuff I can't have AKA. An intelligent conversation.'

"Julian! You're here finally!" Amy appeared out of her room. Olivia supported her brother as he was taken by surprise, as he had a tendency to fall over when taken by surprise.

"Uh, hi!" Julian grinned nervously. He hated acting like an idiot.

"Will there be any chance of an intelligent conversation?" Iley inquired hopefully.

"Sure! We have to discuss and make a list of the most important and famous (and infamous) inventions of all times." Amy smiled.

"Great. And now she wants to join in…" Julian muttered.

"And I can help!" Iley cried on queue. Olivia rolled her eyes.

"I don't see why not." Amy shrugged, not noticing Julian's grumbling.

"YAY! INTELLIGENT CONVERSATION!" Iley cried, running into Amy's room.

"And lock my sister out!" Julian cackled. The door closed with a bang and a click.

"And I'm abandoned…" Olivia muttered.

"You got me!" Dan cried.

"I repeat, I was abandoned…" She sighed.

"Aw, come on, I'm not that bad." Dan stumbled up. Olivia blinked, like asking him if she was an idiot.

"Gee, thanks…" Dan muttered.

"How long do you reckon they'll take in there?" Olivia tilted her head.

"Maybe an hour or two, knowing Amy." Dan shrugged.

"TWO HOURS! WITH YOU!" Olivia looked distraught.

"Great. I'm stuck with someone who doesn't like me…" He muttered again. Olivia's phone started ringing. There was utter silence until Olivia answered it.

"Hello? Oh, hi Hannah. Uh huh. Here? In Boston! That's great! How long till you get here! Three hours. Uh huh. Great. Bye." Olivia shut the phone down.

"Shut up." She growled at Dan as he started giggling. The phone started to ring again.

"Hello? Ailis. Hm. You escaped again didn't you? Well, that's nice. How long. Four hours. Well, that's nice. Well, bye." She glared at Dan before he had time to laugh even more.

"Well, I guess since I have no other way to escape, we may as well punish them for leaving us on our own…" For once, both of them had the same idea. Without saying anything they rushed to the kitchen.

"You know a really infamous one was the atomic bomb. Albert Einstein split the atom, remember?" CRASH! Iley and Julian looked out of each other desperately.

"Wow! How do you get up there?" Dan's amazed voice echoed.

"It's pretty easy. Hoist yourself up with the drawer." Olivia's voice echoed back.

"OLIVIA! GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN CUPBOARD!" Julian and Iley burst out of the room, only to find Olivia in the higher, larger cupboards rolled up in a ball.

"DOWN. NOW." Julian pointed at the floor in front of him. Olivia, after struggling for a bit, managed to get her legs out, followed by the rest of her body and jumped down. Julian was glaring at her, with his red hot 'I'm gonna kill you' glare.

"What? I was bored."

Olivia hummed as Julian sat next to her growling.

"Aw, come on, I thought we learnt not to leave me to my own devices, didn't we? And that's exactly what you did." Olivia gave him are you stupid smile.

"Well, at least you got some inventions down." Iley sighed.

"Yeah, but some of the most known. We want not so known ones." Julian groaned.

"Well, they can come to our house. We've Olivia proofed the whole place." Iley rolled her eyes.

"Actually I can get into places. If you hadn't noticed, the baby locks were gone." Olivia smiled at Julian again.

"Well, tomorrow-"

"When Ailis and Hannah will be here." Olivia grinned. Julian and Iley were silent, Iley in the middle of an objection.

"You guys wouldn't listen to me. So I didn't tell you." Julian sat back into his seat.

"Hannah won a bet against Natalie, and Ailis ran away. I also got a call from Josh saying that Jonah Wizard took a liking to him and is coming to Boston to help him find Ailis." Olivia calmly said. Iley rolled her eyes as Julian groaned.

"You guys know you can't have you friends when Ailis comes back." Olivia and Iley sat up straight.

"Of course! Darn it!" Iley put her head in her hands.

"We'll have to sit with the girly girls to have more company…" Olivia frowned.

"Great…" Iley growled.

"She'll be here in about two hours." Olivia said without any emotion in her voice.

"She doesn't have to go to school. Besides, we only just made it in by one or two days for the new term. We're already about a week in." Julian shrugged.

"That could work." Iley shrugged as well.

"Hannah and Ailis will probably, I don't know, spend all their time in the library?" Olivia giggled as Iley started whimpering.

"Aw, come on Iley, education comes first!" Julian smiled cockily.

"Reading gives you an education!" Iley groaned.

"Not that good a one!" Olivia rolled her eyes.

"The library near our place has nothing good on Greek Mythology, it's all stuff and books you've read or heard of before." Julian sighed.

"Fine." Iley grumbled.

Ailis was rambling on the way home about how annoying it was to be stuck with Josh for a protection job. Olivia had zoned out after the first five minutes. Well, there were all together again, and now the fun would begin.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
"School? Haha!" Olivia rolled her eyes while Ailis rolled on the floor in laughter, disturbing Olivia's mother who was trying to read her files from the branch meetings in the bland front room.

"What, its part of being a protector!" Olivia sighed, doing her best to convince her cousin that she had a reason to have been going to school.

"But the best part about going to find OUR clues was that we didn't have to go to school anymore!" Ailis continued to roll on the floor in laughter, leaving Olivia even more frustrated.

"Olivia, are you ready?" Iley cried, frustrated and putting her head around the door.

"Coming! Stay, and don't, cause a massive tomato Sauce explosion or something." Olivia growled and dismissed Ailis, who was left cackling on the floor.

Olivia grumbled as she quickly followed Julian and Iley into school.

"Why can't we just bring her to schoo-"

"A very bad idea, so no." Iley cut her off quickly.

"You really want to sit with a bunch of girly girls? Hannah still hasn't lost her makeup from years ago." Olivia stayed silent after Iley's last remark. The sound of the bell cut through the school yard, and the three of them parted their separate ways.

Natalie was bored, really bored. Ian was being completely anti-social since he wasn't exactly expecting the response Amy had given him, and Hannah was visiting her friends. Natalie was a Lucian. She was trained by her mother and father, and she was in fact very smart. And devious.

"Alright Hannah, let's find out what sort of secrets she's hiding…" Natalie also knew how to hack into accounts, emails and so forth. Hannah's email was un-expectedly easy to hack into.

"? What sort of name is that?_" _Natalie snorted. Scanning the list none seemed to attract her attention. They were mainly titled, 'QUIZ!', 'Mwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!', 'PANDAS SHALL RULE THE EARTH!' and so forth. Then a message popped up.  
'Message received'

"What's this…?" Natalie scrolled up to the top of the list.  
It was titled-  
'Head of Hotep Branches- WARNING FOR PROTECTORS OF CAHILLS'

"What?" Natalie breathed in.

"Dear whoever this may concern,  
the danger is growing. We are not sure if the Cahills are aware yet, but we need more in action to protect the five main teams-  
Amy and Dan Cahill  
Alistar Oh and the Starling Triplets  
the Holts  
Jonah Wizard and  
the Kabras  
We have just realized The Vespers current mission. They have now discovered that our family holds the key to immortal life. They are trying to find our clues first, to secure their spot before they find the clues to make themselves all powerful. If we discover all of our clues first, we can hold the Vespers back for a little longer.  
Kindest Regards,  
Head of the Five Branches-  
Head of Hathorika, Ria Hotep  
Head of Thothela, Daniela Johnson  
Head of Isus, Christine Rogers  
Head of Sekhata, Joshua Massri  
Head of Horada, Sue Rogger-Amies."  
Natalie closed the window. Shaking, she picked up the phone and dialed her brother. She heard distant ringing from her brother's room.

"Ian? You may want to see this…"

Hannah rang up the others in a fit.

"My email account's been hacked! And there was a message from the branch leaders! It's been opened but it wasn't opened by me!" Hannah screamed from the other end of the phone.

"You mean that Ian or Natalie opened it?"

"I DON'T KNOW! BUT IF YOUR PEOPLE ASK QUESTIONS, LIE! LIE BADLY!" Hannah hung up abruptly and quickly, taking the rest of them by surprise.

"We'd better call Josh." Julian tried to place a plan into action, trying to make sure everything was calm and under control.

"I'm on it." Ben quickly hurried out of the room with his phone, for once caring for his brother's well being.

"What do we do then?" Julian, Olivia and Iley all exchanged glances. They knew that the Cahills were cautious, and they weren't quite sure how to react.

"We'll just see how it goes." Iley shrugged, and everyone abruptly left the room on que.

"Do you think they know yet?" Julian whispered, trying to raise their hopes a little bit.

"Let's hope not. They went through all of this in their hunt." Olivia growled, still unsure of how they would react.

"Oh no, here comes trouble…" Iley spotted Dan, who was racing across the school yard, with an excited look on his face.

"Are you guys secret Ninjas or something? Do you do Kung Fu? Or superpowers! So your secret Ninjas who are protecting us from those weird Vesper-y people?" Dan was practically bouncing round the three of them in pure excitement. They were all taken aback by the sudden wave of questions that they were a little too stunned to answer them.

"Yes but how do we know this is just a hoax and you work FOR the Vespers?" Amy sighed, causing Dan to stop jumping and the three Hoteps look offended.

"Why would we work for THEM?" Julian nearly screamed, as he himself was probably the most offended, seeing as he had been held hostage by them once.

"Well, you have no proof, really. The email could have been a fake, and, if the Vespers are one ancient family trying to get our clues, what does your family do or have?" Amy questioned, as she was quite cautious of people who wanted to 'help' her now.

"We hold the keep to eternal life." Olivia remarked absent-mindedly.

"Cool!" Dan started to jump around again, only getting more excited.

"OLIVIA!" Iley and Julian cried, followed by a face-palm by Julian.

"Opps." Olivia blinked a few times, and then she just decided to shrug.

"That doesn't prove anything…" Amy muttered, shaking her head.

"Hey, believe us or not, we're on YOUR side!" Julian sighed, starting to get frustrated with Amy.

"You have no proof!" Amy cried standing up.

"FINE! You'll believe us when we save your sorry butt!" Julian also stood up and shouted in Amy's face, and left, dragging Olivia and Iley with him.

"This isn't really a good idea…" Dan whispered, feeling a bit un-easy for following the Hoteps.

"Believe me, when we get the dirt on them, we can get rid of them… somehow…" Natalie kept her eye on the Hoteps, carefully making sure they didn't get out of her sight.

"Yo all, I gotta gig tomorrow, I don't have time to get a mashed up!" Jonah was one of the teams that the Kabras had called to see what the Hoteps were all about.

"They're gone!" Hamilton Holt and Sinead Starling cried, and Natalie scolded herself for taking her eyes off them for a second. Bursting out of the bushes, Natalie looked left and right, trying to spot any sign of them.

"Come on guys, we've got to find them." She barked the order at the others in the bush, who reluctantly obeyed.

"Come on, let's- AGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!" Natalie screamed at a man in a black ninja suit and ran for her brother.

"Ninjas!" Dan cried in delight, then he screamed as he ducked a punch from one of them.

"Group up!" Amy cried above the screaming, forcing everyone into a sort of circle. One Ninja stepped forward, aimed and-

"Bulls eye!" Olivia cried, as the Ninja fell to the ground in pain.

"Olivia? But I thought you-" Dan started, but Julian charging into another Ninja distracted him.

"Guys! Go go go!" He growled, ducking a punch from another Ninja. Hannah, Iley and Ailis were quick to join the party, defending the Cahills from the Ninjas. Then another wave came. This time with swords.

"GO!" Iley cried as she feebly tried to use a stick to fend off a Ninja's sword.

"There's a car round the corner, Ben's driving!" Ailis shouted, out of breath. The Cahills didn't need telling twice. They were all off, quickly followed by the Hoteps. They all didn't dare look back to see if the Ninjas were following, but when they reached the corner, they all cheered in delight. Julian quickly swinged in the front seat.

"We've got some, er, back packers to join us!" He grinned cheekily as all the Cahills and remaining Hoteps piled into the back.

"There isn't enough room back there!" Ben growled, turning on the ignition.

"Ben that doesn't matter right now!" Julian roared at his cousin.

"It's not safe-"

"Well, it's safer than being skewered by some Ninjas, okay! Drive!"

"Gee, okay, I'm going-"

"NOW!" Julian roared again, when he heard Amy whimpering.

"Hurry, they're coming!" She cried, distressed.

"Only till we lose them!" Ben sighed, and the car roared into motion.

"I'm seriously tired to be getting a ticket…"


End file.
